


The Day After

by Ramzes



Series: Days Invisible [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Elia Fests, Gen, everyone keeps pitying poor rhaegar because his wife could no longer have children, the aftermath of aegon's birth, what about her?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 08:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: “There must be one more,” Rhaegar said and Elia wondered if he could make her feel more deficient if he tried.





	The Day After

Elia’s first reaction was relief. Lying in her bed, unable to even turn her head left or right without a sharp pain shooting all the way to her legs and exhaustion spreading a dark veil before her eyes, she felt profoundly grateful for knowing that she would not die in childbirth. She would to see her children grow up. And she would never again pray for the Stranger to come and save her.

She could not say so, of course. It would sound non-motherly, non-dutifully, selfish. And Rhaegar was the last person she would confide in, anyway. He would never understand and still, it felt weird to watch him. He looked crushed. Much more than she felt. For a moment, guilt pulled at her heart strings but she was too tired to ponder over it. And as she went into exhausted sleep, the sound of Rhaenys’ voice as her daughter kept babbling in her incomprehensive tongue the last thing she heard, this sweet reassurance did not leave her: she would live and never have to go through this again.

Only in the next few days the reality of what had befallen her dawned.

The maesters treated her with the deference and lowered eyes reserved for a household visited by the Stranger. Rhaegar was as courteous and politely interested as he had been when they had first married. Elia could see his overwhelming disappointment and his valiant attempts to hide it – and while some would say that she was lucky he even tried this, because many a man would have not bothered with niceties to their now useless wife, Elia had enough of Dorne in her to build up her own disappointment with her lord husband, although she was too smart to ever voice it. Again and again, her mind brought her back to the night of Aegon’s conception and the pain that had seared its way through her most feminine parts for weeks afterwards and she wondered if waiting just a few months more might have made a difference. She did not want to ever give birth again, yet she blamed Rhaegar for taking away from her the chance to try again. She remembered the way her skin had chafed after being bedridden for so long after Rhaenys’ birth and wondered if this time it would break.

The connection that she and Rhaegar had started building soon after their wedding was disintegrating right before her eyes. Sometimes, she wondered if it had ever healed after the humiliation at Harrenhal. She had done her best to make it so and for a while, she had thought that she had succeeded. Now, she had to face the possibility that she had been lying to herself and lying to Rhaegar because her memory could bring it back as vividly as the night of Aegon’s conception, and the feeling of stunned betrayal was no less devastating.

“There must be one more,” Rhaegar would often say and she wanted to scream because she knew, she knew for sure that he did not see the children that they did have. He was only focused on the one they could not.

Sometimes, the feeling of devastation was overwhelming. She could not believe that she was damaged for good. She had always been of frail health but never something life-changing. Not like this. A queen’s duty was to provide heirs; a woman was meant to give birth and she felt inadequate, as if it was somehow her fault. Of course, she told no one. A princess should not complain – and whom could she complain to, anyway? Ashara had left for Dorne, her mother’s illness summoning her home; none of Elia’s other companions was a close confidant. And Rhaegar was ill-prepared to soothe her disappointment, even if she were inclined to share them with him, which she was not. She still blamed him. Each enshrined in their own grief, they grew farther and farther apart until Elia started wondering if they had ever been close, or they had simply tried to do their best and lied to themselves that they had achieved what they desired.

Still, she did not give this much thought. She spent most of her time sleeping, trying to recover – she had lost too much blood, and when she was awake, she preferred to focus on her survival, her children and if this annoyed Rhaegar, making him feel that she underestimated his concerns and lofty aims – well, it was not on her. She had done her best to aid him and he had undermined all their joint efforts for a wolf girl at Harrenhal. He would not force a comrade wounded in battle to rise and fight, so he could do his lady wife the same courtesy. A woman’s war was in the birthing bed, was it not? Rhaegar would better remember this.

“There must be once more,” he said over and over and Elia, feeling both guilty and angered, let him talk without listening to him because there would not be one more. His prophecy would have to rearrange itself.

“I’m going to Summerhall,” he said one day. “There must be some way to heal you.”

“Perhaps there is,” Elia sighed, wondering how much time would pass before he accepted reality. How much time would pass before he stopped perceiving her for what she could not give him and start perceiving her for what she had.

For a brief, incredible moment, he looked at her with concern. “Are you this much set against my leaving, Elia?” he asked. “Would you ask me not to go if you could?”

“Would you change your plans if I did?” she asked, holding her breath despite everything.

Rhaegar slowly shook his head. “There must be one more,” he said and Elia wondered if he could make her feel more deficient if he tried.


End file.
